A Winters Tale
by The Exile
Summary: While his best friend Jeff is off saving the world, Tony has to explain his absence to teachers. Apart from this, his school life continues as normal. But this is Eagleland and normality is relative.
1. Chapter 1

"Antonio Turpentine!"

"Here, miss!"

Tony put his hand up even though he hated being called by his full name.

"Antonio, is Jeff Andonuts still absent?"

"Yes, miss!"

"Did you contact his parents as I asked you to?"

"Miss, I can't find the Professor either!"

Tony's home room teacher tapped her pen on her desk irritably.

"That boy has been absent for three weeks straight!" she said, "He's missing all his lessons! If he doesn't come back soon, he'll fail his exams!"

"Don't worry, Miss, Jeff can't fail his exams - he's a genius!" said Tony, "He's so clever he's already three weeks ahead of us all, so he can afford to take three weeks off! I bet he's doing all his work from where he is anyway!"

"Hmph. That's why I tolerate it." said the teacher. She sighed and marked down Jeff as absent on the register, "Aeolia Stable!"

"BOING!" yelled a girl's voice. Tony looked around to the desk behind him and gazed at her. Today she wore a simple red dress. She had permanently wild, windswept hair and doll-like green eyes that looked somewhere else, somewhere Tony knew he wouldn't be able to see if he tried. As far as anyone could make out, Aeolia was raised by Mr. Saturns.

"Rocky Road!"

There was a long pause, during which several children giggled, a ruler twanged, firing an eraser at another child, who protested, and someone's paper rustled as they frantically tried to do some last minute homework.

"ROCKY ROAD!"

Something went 'thud'. A head emerged from underneath a desk. It had dishevelled hair and was dirty.

"Rocky Road, what ARE you doing?"

"Er... I dropped my pen, miss!"

"Well, you shouldn't have had your pen out during assembly!"

"Sorry, miss!"

"I assume this means you haven't done your homework." she sighed.

"No, miss, my homework is complete and finished!" blurted Rocky, still rifling around under his desk. The teacher sighed and walked over to his desk. His homework was on the table. She picked it up and inspected it, her beetle-like eyes moving up and down underneath her tasteless glasses.

"Well, it looks okay..." she said, "ROCKY, do come out from under the desk! Find your pen after class, you don't need it now!"

Tony knew that Rocky hadn't been searching for his pen or sneakily finishing his homework. He had been playing with Savey, his pet Save Frog. Rocky insisted it was a genuine Save Frog. Maxwell had invented a machine to test whether it was or not, but it involved somebody dying and they couldn't get any volunteers. If Savey's escaped and the teacher finds him, thought Tony, she'll go berserk. What did that idiot mean by bringing his pet frog into class? He worked hard in Dungeon Design class, probably because his dad took the classes, but apart from that, Rocky was thick as two short planks.

The homework check took up half an hour. Tony had done his homework easily, so he didn't need to worry. He let his mind wander to more important matters, like Jeff's disappearance. Where had he gone, wondered Tony, on that long journey of his? Was he saving the world right now? How many UFOs had he seen? Tony had always wanted to see a UFO, but he had heard they attacked you and tried to kill you. Tony wasn't a hero like Jeff. A good mathematician, maybe a future accountant with an office as big as Mr. Monotoli's, but not a hero.

Tony was interrupted from his pondering by a soft ribbit-ribbit and a wet sensation on his lap. He carefully felt with his hand until he found Savey, then closed his hand lightly around him, taking care not to hurt him, and put him in his satchel before tightening the buckles. Everyone had begun leaving now, and he needed to find a strategic time to make his own exit. If he went first or last, he would draw attention to himself and his croaking, wriggling satchel.

A soft hand closed around his arm. He looked up into two round, wide eyes.

"WHIZZ?" demanded Aeolia.

"I'm fine." Tony sighed, "Come on, I'll walk you to your class."


	2. Chapter 2

2.

That night, Tony sat on his bunk and looked through his homework. He knew he didn't have long to do it in, not if he wanted to finish it before something happened to him, like being made to do Maxwell's homework or find Savey for the fifth time today.

As usual, there hadn't been any homework from Dungeon Design. It was a practical subject and Mr. Brick Road (always Mr. Brick Road, never Mr. Brick or Mr. Road, unless you wanted to get hit with a sign post) was a practical teacher. You could learn a lot more about dungeon design from wandering around a dungeon feeding the monsters, resetting the traps, checking that none of the sign posts had fallen over and that the music was still playing and the save points were a sensible distance apart, than you could from any amount of reading books on Dungeon Design Theory.

He didn't do his Philosophy homework. He was useless at Philosophy. He just didn't have the sort of mind for it. If it couldn't be measured precisely, he didn't want to know about it. He had tried getting Aeolia to do it for him – she always seemed to receive high grades in the subject – but the teacher noticed immediately when his homework was suddenly interspersed with 'Whizz' and 'Zoom' and little doodles of non-Euclidian entities that only she could see.

That left him his Science and Maths homework. He decided to do his Maths homework first. Tony secretly enjoyed his Maths homework. If he was to become Eagleland's greatest accountant and earn enough money to buy and sell the other boys three hundred times over, he needed to become an expert at Maths. He took his notepad, pencil and ruler from his desk, next to the mirror, pictures of his parents and neatly laid out stationery.

Halfway through a particularly difficult equation, a flicker of movement distracted him. His pencil slipped, making a jagged line straight down the graph he had been carefully drawing. It looked depressingly like some kind of economic meltdown, so much so that he shivered with foreboding and rubbed it out. Then he noticed it again – another flicker, sending a shadow across his page. It was really distracting him from his work. Maybe he had left the window open again. He stood up to close it. Then he saw where it was coming from – not the window at all, but the mirror.

There was a face in the mirror and it wasn't his own.

The face was that of another boy around his age, with short dark hair. However, his face was less pinched and his hair was a bowl cut, not a rat's nest that seemed to be permanently plastered to his face, no matter how often he combed it. He was wearing some kind of white uniform with orange markings. The expression on his face was one of extreme worry, almost pleading.

"Help me!" said the face in the mirror.

"What are you doing in my mirror?" asked Tony. He blinked and looked down at his own hands. To his relief, he didn't look like the reflection in the mirror. He wondered if it was a ghost. Maxwell was always telling him stories about their school being haunted to try and scare him. Tony had never seen a ghost before but he had seen several UFOs. The boy didn't look like an alien.

"I'm Moor Ecivres." said the boy, "And I'm stuck. Could you let me out?"

"How do I do that?"

"Just turn the mirror to the window so you can see the reflection from the mirror in the window."

Tony shrugged and did as he was told. The reflection of the reflection should have been barely visible. Against all laws of physics that Tony had been taught, it seemed to be even clearer than the image in the mirror and much larger. Suddenly, the window pane began rattling. Tony realised that the boy was actually crouching on the window ledge, trying to get in. Tony opened the latch for him. He suddenly wondered if this was something to do with Jeff. It was just the sort of thing he would do.

"Thank you!" said Moor Ecivres, struggling to get his breath back. He looked exhausted and his uniform was covered in sweat. "I was afraid I'd gotten myself stuck forever when I took that wrong turning! I really, really am not very good at this."

"Very good at what?" asked Moor Ecivres.

"I'm an Escargot Express delivery boy." he said, "Well... a trainee. I don't think I'm even going to be that for very long. I'm going to fail my training for this mess I've made!"

Tony frowned. He felt genuinely sorry for him. Failing exams was a terrible fate.

"You see, I'm lost." he explained, "And I'm supposed to be making a delivery. If I don't get there before midnight, I'm going to be late!"

Tony looked at the clock. It was 7pm.

"Well, where is the place you've got to deliver to?" he asked, "I'm afraid there aren't many places you can get to in five hours from Winters. Jeff took Dr. Andonuts' only flying machine and nobody's seen Tessie for six months now..."

"Its okay, I can use the... er... well, its kind of a trade secret. But its much faster than a flying machine!"

"Well then, why don't you just use it?"

"Well, normally I would, b... but I kind of got lost. My map-reading sucks. And now I'm off the beaten track and its very dangerous to go off the beaten track when you're in the... in there!"

"Why's it dangerous?"

"Well, its dark and scary and the boss says there's all sorts of things down there! Like... like the BEAST!"

"The BEAST?" repeated Tony. It was sounding more and more like a Maxwell story except that the boy wasn't shining a flashlight in his face for dramatic emphasis.

"Yes, the BEAST!" said Moor Ecivres, "Its got huge pointy teeth and it can kill you just by looking at you!"

"And how am I supposed to help you with it?" asked Tony, "Wait a minute, you don't expect me to..."

"I'd kind of like someone to go in there with me." said the boy, "Please? Its not far! I won't get us lost again! I'm sure we won't meet the Beast! You'll be reimbursed! Honest!"

"Listen, I'm not really the brave adventurer type..." said Tony, scratching his head. His hair was oily and felt uncomfortable. "Its a shame Jeff isn't here..."

The boy looked crestfallen, "You don't have to be a brave adventurer. I mean, we're not going to looking for the Beast and kill it or anything! We can always port out again if we get in trouble, like I just did."

"And end up stuck in a mirror?"

"Well, there is a danger of that, yes..."

"Do all Escargot Express delivery people do this all day?"

"I told you, its a trade secret!" said the boy, "I'm in enough trouble as it is without giving away trade secrets as well!"

"I'm sorry..."

"I'll give you half my pay!" said the boy. Tony's eyes sparkled at this.

"Well..." said Tony, "If you absolutely promise that we won't go near any Beasts." after a second's pause, he added, "And if Aeolia says its okay."


	3. Chapter 3

"If you're going on an adventure." said Rocky, "Its very important to remember to save."

With these wise words, the boy opened the door to his pet frog's cage. It was worn out from its own most recent adventure - almost being cooked accidentally by the school chef – and so it was sitting quite still by the side of its pond.

"Out you come, Savey!" he said, putting his hand next to the door. Savey looked at him with two beady, unblinking eyes.

"Ribbit." said Savey, before jumping in the opposite direction.

"Oh, come on, Savey, you LOVE saving!" Rocky scratched his head, "Maybe I've not been feeding him right. Save frogs need different food to normal frogs, you know."

"Its okay, I'll use the phone."

"Hmph. Phones!" Rocky sniffed, "Everyone knows its a frog at the other end of the phone anyway. Say, Tony... do you want to borrow Savey?"

"What? Really?"

"He hasn't been on an adventure before. It'll be his first chance to prove himself as a save frog!" explained Rocky, locking the door of the cage again and picking it up, "You don't know how many chances to save you'll find along the way. Mister Brick Road says lots of cheap, shoddy dungeons that aren't made by him don't have a phone booth that works. If you have your own save frog, you can save anywhere!"

"Um... thank you." said Tony, "But are you sure he'll be safe?"

"A save frog needs to learn how to cope with danger!" said Rocky, "One day he'll be some famous adventurer's save frog and help them on the ultimate quest to overcome evil! Not just some kid's pet! I want you to come back victorious from your quest to set a good example to Savey! Do you promise?"

"Er... promise."

"And remember to save as often as possible!"

Aeolia's reaction was very different to that of Rocky.

"Dakotas!" she said, clinging to Tony's arm and looking up at him with pleading eyes. He tried to pull himself free of her grip but she pulled him back, refusing to let him out of the doorway. She wasn't that strong but she knew that he would never fight back very hard for fear of being too rough with her. Girls were evil like that.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." he assured her.

"Boing!" she protested, shaking her head.

"Savey's with me." he told her, "Its okay whatever happens to me if I can save, right?"

"Zoom." she said. Then she pulled him to the window. The night sky was a deep blue with a few wisps of dark clouds and a light patter of rain. Tony thought he saw a UFO-shaped silhouette flicker past the broad, silvery full moon.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, "Do you know something I don't?"

Aeolia just sat watching the moon, her brow furrowed in concentration and suspicion. Then she almost leapt from her seat, pulled him through the doorway, down the corridor and into his room, where Moor Ecivres was waiting, watching the clock with a look of dread on his face.

"Boing!" she announced.

"I think she says she'll only let us go if she can come with us." explained Tony.

"W... well, the more the merrier." said the delivery boy, standing up, "Is that a f... frog?"

"A save frog."

"I don't know if you can s... save in the w... warp."

"What's the warp?"

"AAAGH! I d... didn't mean to s... say... that's a t... trade secret!" he said.

"Its okay. We can keep secrets. Can't we, Aeolia?"

"Whizz!"

"W... well, I guess we are going there, so you'll f... find out anyway. Just s... stand still a moment..."

Moor Ecivres stood up and picked up his large white mailbag. He walked over to the window, pulled up one sleeve to expose what looked like a small white watch, then placed the clock face to it. The surface of the window seemed to shimmer and glow with a pale blue light, a phenomena that Aeolia watched with rapt interest.

"Grab my hand." he told them. Frog cage under one arm, Aeolia clutching the other, Tony just grabbed the other boy's hand without dropping the frog. The mirror rippled like a pool of water when Moor Ecivres jumped into it. Tony followed him. It felt as it looked, like plunging into a deep, dark, icy pool of water. Seconds later, he felt himself land on his feet again, dry and unscathed. In fact, he could barely feel any sensations at all – it was a little like being in a dream. The frog croaked irritably. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was somewhere dark, a formless void through which he could make out shapes that looked like pathways, tunnels and arches, except that every time he looked away, they shifted to somewhere slightly different.

"The Warp." explained Moor Ecivres, "A place that connects everywhere to everywhere else. Its how Escargot Express manage to deliver items so fast to places on the other side of Eagleland, and how we manage to access places safely that no delivery man should be able to access."

Tony had to admit that he had always wondered about that. He was always sending things to Jeff via Escargot Express and they always arrived, no matter where he said he was.

"So..." he said, "Where are we going?"

The boy dug around in his bag and retrieved a map that showed an intricate network of lines and different coloured nodes.

"We're around here." he said, pointing to one of a cluster of blue nodes around the word 'Winters', before adding, "I think. And this is where we're going."

The destination he pointed to was a small pink node in the middle of a much larger cluster entitled 'Twoson'. Tony had hoped he would be going somewhere a little more exotic, like Dalaam or Scarabia, but Twoson was still exciting – it was a big city, enormous compared to the tiny community of Winters! Maybe he would see one of the big accounting firm buildings... he could even take a bus to Fourside...

"We can do it in ten nodes." said the boy confidently, "That'll definitely take us there in time. Right... now to find out which direction we're heading in..."

He looked at the machine on his wrist, muttered to himself for a while, turning his arm in different directions, before deciding upon one. Tony followed him.

The Warp proved difficult to walk through. It was as chaotic as it looked. Bridges, arches, platforms and valleys literally formed or disappeared under his feet. Some of the shapes looked downright geometrically impossible. Aeolia seemed to have no trouble at all. She hummed to herself as she jumped from nook to cranny as if it was a new game. In the end, he gave her the frog's cage as she bounced it about less than him. They could only walk as fast as Moor Ecivres, however. Tony couldn't tell one direction from the other. It was only the boy's map and the device on his wrist that gave them any indication as to where they were going.

After an immeasurable length of time, the boy put his arm out for them to stop. Tony was about to open his mouth to ask why but Moor Ecivres put his fingers to his lips and indicated for them to get down onto the floor. Through the sudden silence, Tony heard a noise like an animal call, but dull and flat.

"Its the call of the Beast!" whispered Moor Ecivres.

"Are you sure?" asked Tony, "It sounds like a duck."

"Do not mock the Beast! That sound means certain death to any who hear it! Quickly, we must flee!"

Springing to his feet, the delivery boy took a quick glance at his watch, then darted off in another direction. Tony ran after him. He could hear the quacking – the call of the Beast, he corrected himself - grow louder. He thought he saw a pair of crimson eyes burning in the darkness. Then Aeolia screamed as the ground dipped sharply underneath them as if it was melting away. Grabbing hold of Aeolia, Tony lost his footing. He tried to brace himself for the fall. Then the ground reappeared under his feet again. He was now balanced on a tiny ledge, one of a series that jutted out from the floor of the basin, twenty feet below. The landscape was still shifting, ledges cropping up and disappearing again. He clung on to the sides of the ledge and prayed that it wouldn't disappear.

Then he saw them. They were all around him. Glowing with pale blue auras, their feathers white, their bills golden, their menacing quacks deafening.

The ducks.


End file.
